


Included

by IAmAshamedOfMyFanfics (faraandmera)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Byun Baekhyun is a Good Friend, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Romance, and swearing, i wrote this a while ago so i dont know what to tag it, kyungsoo is mentioned once, nothing major, that happens bc... teenagers, there is violence...sorta, transfer student lay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 08:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17679908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faraandmera/pseuds/IAmAshamedOfMyFanfics
Summary: Baekhyun is on his feet in seconds. Don’t they know how hard keeping up with another language is?Baekhyun isn’t intimidating. He’s never been in a fight- unless you count that time Kyungsoo almost pushed him down the stairs- so he doesn’t really know how to hold himself, to seem more intimidating, either.But he’s ready to defend his friend anyway.





	Included

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in June of 2016, and i never posted it on ao3  
> but now that tumblr has forsaken me yet again, im posting some of the stories i remember liking after i wrote them here.

When Yixing first transfers, he expects a few things to happen. Either he’ll find a few people who don’t mind him still being in a learning process from moving countries, and become close friends with them, or no one will bother with him. Either might be fine, he figures, even if the later would be disappointing.

What he doesn’t expect is the pure enthusiasm at trying to be his friend he receives from one Byun Baekhyun.

“You should eat with us, okay? Everyone’s really nice, I promise.” Baekhyun bounces in his seat where he sits, at the desk in front of Yixing, turned backwards in his chair.

“…Okay.” Yixing can only nod. How bad it could be?

There a lot of people, Yixing realizes when Baekhyun leads him to the group. It’s almost directly after introducing himself that Yixing feels lost. There are multiple conversations going on at once, and he can barely keep up with one.

“Yixing?” Baekhyun waves a hand in front of Yixing’s face, drawing his attention, before motioning to one of the other boys. “This is Jongdae. He’s studying Mandarin, so I figure you could both learn from each other.”

“Hey.” Jongdae raises a hand in greeting.

“Hi.” Yixing smiles, bowing his head slightly. Though he doesn’t say it, he’s silently thankful Baekhyun introduced them.

 

Yixing is a good person. Baekhyun realizes that very quickly within the few weeks following Yixing’s transfer to their school. Honest and hardworking while he tries to keep up with a language that Baekhyun finds out he only started learning a few months before moving. Yixing is also probably one of the nicest people Baekhyun has ever met, he can almost tell just from the way he holds himself.

So when he overhears someone making fun of Yixing for looking lost, “constantly,” Baekhyun is on his feet in seconds. Don’t they know how hard keeping up with another language is?

“Hey jerks!” Baekhyun isn’t intimidating. He’s never been in a fight- unless you count that time Kyungsoo almost pushed him down the stairs- so he doesn’t really know how to hold himself, to seem more intimidating, either. “How about you shut up?”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t talk shit about someone for not understanding stuff! I bet you couldn’t understand if someone was speaking another language around you, you prick.”

Baekhyun thinks getting punched in the face is totally worth it.

 

“What did you do to get punched?” Chanyeol, his oldest friend, asks when Baekhyun returns to class the next day with a black eye.

“People are mean, and apparently calling them out means I should be hit.”

“At least you tried.”

Yixing doesn’t get told why Baekhyun has a black eye, and doesn’t push the question further than asking if the other is okay. Not that he stops wondering. He doesn’t want someone he considers a friend to get hurt, or get into fights, so he tries asking the others until one of them tell him.

“Someone was making fun of… someone.. and Baekhyun tried to stand up for them.” Jongdae partially avoids the answer, Yixing can tell, but its more than he got from Baekhyun, so he’ll take it.

“That’s awful.” Yixing decides. Making fun of someone is horrible. Punching someone for standing up for someone else is awful. Baekhyun getting hurt when he was trying to help is awful. “Who was it? Are they okay. Who he was standing up for, I mean.”

“Uh… yeah they’re… they didn’t even know about it; they’re fine.”

 

Baekhyun frowns, glaring at the clock on the wall as seconds tick by. The hand holding his head up taps on his cheeks idly in his boredom. The last thing he expects is a note to land on his desk. Even more so one from Yixing of all people.

 _‘Are you okay?’_  It says, and Baekhyun glances at Yixing who offers a smile and tilt of the head. _Oh no_ , Baekhyun thinks, _that’s cute_.

 _‘Yes.’_  Baekhyun writes back, tossing the note back while the teacher is turned around. There’s only a few minutes in class, Baekhyun realizes when he glances back at the clock. Couldn’t this have waited? Even with that mental question, Baekhyun is a bit disappointed he doesn’t get another note.

When the bell rings and everyone is dismissed, he turns his attention to where Yixing is.

“Jongdae told me you were defending someone.” Yixing points to his eye, to remind Baekhyun about his own black eye.

“Ah, ha… well.” Baekhyun wonders, silently, if Yixing knows who, but the confusion at Baekhyun’s shrug seems to indicate he doesn’t. “I wasn’t completely prepared to get hit, if I’m honest.”

“Did you even try to block?”

“…Should I have? I mean… I did instinctively.” Yixing laughs while Baekhyun raises his arm in front of himself as a demonstration. “Not well though.”

“Like that you probably hit yourself.”

“…You can’t prove that, though.”

“Did you?”

“I may have hit myself when they it me. It was still their fault though. And saying I hit myself in the face when someone punched my arms doesn’t sound as cool, you know? I can at least pretend to be cool.” There’s a pause, where Yixing looks confused, before shaking his head with a half laugh, half scoff.

“You are cool.”

“Don’t lie to me Yixing.”

“Sometimes.”

“You’re secretly mean, aren’t you?”

“You told me not to lie.”

“You got me there.”

 

Class group projects were always a toss up between being potentially fun- working with friends- and a horrible experience that makes a person crave the release of death. Baekhyun usually ended up with former, to his luck, because he didn’t mind working with most people. (Except that one guy in middle school who said he was going to make a DNA model, and never did, that jerk.)

In hopes of making sure that’s true again, Baekhyun practically throws himself at Yixing when the teacher tells them to find three other people to work with. Yixing makes a startled noise, that Baekhyun ignores as he makes grabby hands at Chanyeol until the other joins them as well. With both of the friends he has class with acquired, it's just a matter of waiting for someone else to have no-one else to work with.

“Please get off of me.” Oh, and not being draped over Yixing the entire time might be a good idea, too.

“Sorry.”

Once their fourth group member joins them- some guy that usually sits at the back of the class- they get onto discussing topics for their project. What moment in history they will best be able to write about.

“Why don’t we make it easy and go with one of the world wars?” The other guy offers.

“Because everyone would? How about… Uh…” Chanyeol struggles to remember another historical event. Or at least one he doesn’t think every other person in the class is thinking of.

“I-”

“Come on; we know tons about the world wars. It’ll be easy.” The guy speaks again, leaning back in his seat.

“But we might not get a good grade with that.” Chanyeol’s reasoning isn’t horrible, at least.

“What about-”

“Who cares as long, as we pass?”

“Actually!” Baekhyun finally breaks into the conversation, holding a hand between the two. “Yixing has been trying to say something.”

With attention on him, Yixing offers the idea of a couple of historical events Baekhyun is pretty sure he’s never heard of- then again he doesn’t pay more attention than what he needs to pass- which is pretty promising.

“Yixing, you beautiful man.” Chanyeol throws an arm over Yixing, and points at their other group mate. “See! These are the kind of ideas that will get us a better grade.”

“You only care that much because you got like 60% on the last test.”

“Who’s side are you on, Baekhyun?”

“Yixing’s.”

“Rude. Aren’t we supposed to be best friends?”

“Probably.”

 

When Yixing first transfers he expects the possibility that he might make a few friends who wont mind the partial language barrier. He hadn’t expected so much enthusiasm in someones attempts to befriend him. But because of that enthusiasm it's easy to find out more about Baekhyun.

And the more he learns the more grateful he is to know Baekhyun.

_“What do you think, Yixing?”_

_“Yixing? Did you have something to say?”_

_“Yixing.”_

_“Hey Yixing.”_

“Yixing?” Speaking of Baekhyun: Yixing blinks back into the present to look up at Baekhyun.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun tilts his head with the question, as if somehow that will help him answer his own question.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You look tired.” He wasn’t wrong, but Yixing shook his head anyway.

“A little, but I’m fine.”

“Just make sure you rest, okay?”

“Okay.” Yixing nods. It was weird, he thinks, usually he was the one asking his friends if they were okay, or telling them to take care of themselves. Not that nobody ever asked him, but he usually found himself taking the _make sure everyone is healthy_ role. So the fact that Baekhyun was asking him felt a little strange.

Then again, it was sort of nice. Baekhyun seemed to have taken it upon himself to make sure Yixing was okay at any given time, or that he wasn’t being left out of conversations. Yixing couldn’t help but smile.

 

Yixing is a good person, Baekhyun had realized really quickly. Despite the part of him that keeps saying that he only did it because he liked Yixing, Baekhyun tells himself that it’s because Yixing is such a good person that he tries to look out for him. He’s not sure how good a job he’s doing, but Yixing seems okay so that’s enough for him.

Baekhyun knows he can be loud and, to some people, annoying. But that was something that came with getting tired of being left out of things. If you want people to give you attention, the easiest way is to purposely get a hold of it. Except- that could be exhausting, especially if it wasn’t in your nature, so Baekhyun took upon himself to make sure Yixing felt included in conversation.

The only way that backfired was how quickly his friends pointed out his actions, and claimed they were the result of a crush. _You can do things for your friends, guys!_ Even if they might not entirely be wrong.

“So, how’s Yixing, Baekhyun?”

“Why ask me?” Baekhyun glares. “He’s fine, by the way.”

“That’s why!” Chanyeol laughs when Baekhyun’s glare intensifies. “Does he know you have a giant crush on him?”

“No. I do not.”

“Didn’t you get punched because someone was talking bad about him?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be friends?”

“Probably.”

“Using my own jokes against me. Horrible.”

 

“Did I do something wrong?” Yixing asks Jongdae, a few days later. When Baekhyun had seemed to be avoiding him for those days.

“What do you mean?”

“Baekhyun is avoiding me. I think.”

“Oh,” Jongdae laughs, throwing an arm over Yixing’s shoulder. “No, no don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, he’s just dumb.”

“What?”

“Oh, Yixing.” Jongdae sound genuinely sorry for Yixing, which only adds to his confusion. What was that supposed to mean? “It’s fine.”

“But…” How does he say ‘ _I already miss spending time with him_ ’ without sounding like he’s got a giant crush? Not that he does. (But he totally does.)

“Do you like him?”

“Huh? Yeah?”

“I mean, romantically.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Yixing promises himself this will be the only time he takes advantage of natively speaking a different language.

“You used that word like two days ago, Yixing. I’m not fooled.”

“I tried.”

“I guess that answers my question though.”

“Don’t tell anyone?”

“Give me a little credit.”

 

“I knew it.” Chanyeol mentally congratulates himself. “They’re both so obvious it’s sad the other hasn’t figured it out.”

“So are we going to be super great friends/wingmen?”

“Obviously.”

 

“Soooo, Baekhyun.”

“Jongdae.” Baekhyun raises an eyebrow in question. Why was Jongdae acting so weird?

“I heard something.”

“Good for you.”

“At least pretend to play along.”

“I mean; _ahem_ , what did you hear, oh great friend of mine?” Baekhyun dramatically leans over the library table, as if he’s incredibly interested. His elbows leaned on the desk, and head in his hands.

“Yixing might like you.” Baekhyun’s elbows slip off the table, and he falls to the ground. “Well, see you later.”

 

“Yo, Yixing!” Chanyeol drops into the seat in front of Yixing. Said person looks up, and brings his full attention to Chanyeol. “Want to know something?”

“Um… Sure?”

“Baekhyun…” Chanyeol leans in real close and whispers. “Has a super huge crush on you.”

“What?” Yixing blinks, mouth falls open. He’s not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t that. Before any coherent thought forms, though, Chanyeol has left him to himself. “What?!”

 

The two don’t talk to each other right away, which has Jongdae and Chanyeol thinking they may need a step two to their plan. They expected at least one of them to take that knowledge and run with it. But nothing!

“Baekhyun?” _Oh!_ The both tense from their spots behind a desk. (Where they were definitely not spying.)

“Oh!” Baekhyun sits up a little too quickly, knocks his knee against his desk, and laughs. “Sup?”

“Um…” Yixing wasn’t who they expected to start the conversation, but it works. “Do you… I mean I… how… think about a date?”

“What?” Baekhyun blinks, confused.  _Nailed it, Yixing._

“I mean…” Yixing sighs, shakes his head, and starts over. “How would you think or- uh- feel about a date… with me… and you?”

“Oh!” Baekhyun pauses, flushes, and nods. “I mean: yes! I mean- I think it would be fine- or I mean- great, yeah. That is a thing I would be super okay with. I mean, more than  _okay_.”  _Oh my god, Baekhyun, shut up._  He cursed himself.

“Great. Yeah… so… after school?”

“Sure, yeah!”

Both Jongdae and Chanyeol high-fived behind the desk.

 

When Yixing first transferred he didn’t expect more than maybe making a friend or two, and hopefully getting close to them. So gaining feelings for Baekhyun, and Baekhyun for him, was a surprise. Not a bad one, but one none the less.

“Hey, Jongdae?”

“Yeah, Yixing?”

“Let’s fight.”

“What?” Jongdae looks startled. “ _You_ , fight? You and  _me_ , fight?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I know what you did.”

“…I have to go.” Jongdae ran off before Yixing could say anything else.

“Jerk. Thank you.”

 

Baekhyun knows he can be loud and, to some people, annoying. Which makes him appreciate his friends even more. It also makes him weirdly startled that someone returns his feeling for them. When the two coincide, it’s even more surprising, and not entirely bad. He’s still a little upset with Chanyeol for telling Yixing, though.

“Yo, jerk!” Baekhyun practically tackles Chanyeol, who stumbles in surprise.

“Ack! Baekhyun, what?!”

“I’m here to kick your ass!”

“What did I do?!”

“You know what you did, you jerk! How would you like it if I told your crush you liked him!”

“I only told because I knew he liked you.”

“That’s not a good excuse!”

“Ow- let go of my hair!”

“Vengeance!”

“Someone save me!”

Baekhyun only lets go because he can’t get another black eye when he has a date.

 

“And then I grabbed his hair.” Baekhyun grins, and Yixing shakes his head.

“Jongdae ran before I could fight him.”

“You,  _fight_?”

“Not you too.”

“You just don’t seem the type, Yixing.”

“I could fight someone… you know… If I wanted.”

“Could you?”

“…No.”

“It’s okay, I’ll fight anyone you need.”

“Is that you admitting something?”

“Not that you can prove.”

**Author's Note:**

> btw yixing messing up asking for a date is more nervousness than language struggle


End file.
